“What’s wrong with her?” Allie asked with a sleepy face and matted hair.
“Bad dream, I suspect.” Modina took hold of Mercy’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Mercy?” she said. “Mercy, wake up.”
The little girl kicked once more, then lay still. Her eyes fluttered open and then shifted left and right nervously.
“It’s okay. It was just a bad dream.” Mercy clutched at Modina, shaking. “It’s all right, everything is okay now.”
“No,” the little girl replied with a hitching voice. “It’s not. I saw them. I saw the elves coming into the city. Nothing stopped them.”
Modina patted her head. “It was just a dream, a nightmare brought on because of what we were saying just before you fell asleep. I told you I won’t let them hurt us.”
“But you couldn’t stop them-no one could. The walls fell down and flying monsters burned the houses. I heard the men screaming in the fog. There was lightning, the ground broke, and the walls fell. They poured in riding white horses all dressed in gold and blue.”
“Gold and blue?” Modina asked.
She nodded.
Modina’s heart felt as if it skipped a beat. “Did you see the elves when you escaped the university?”
“No, just the flying monsters. They were really scary.”
“How did you know they dressed in gold and blue?”
“I saw them in my dream.”
“What else did you see? Which way did they come?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said they were on horses. Did they arrive here on horses or did they come by boat?”
“I don’t know. I just saw them on horses coming into the city.”
“Do you know which gate?”
She shook her head, looking more frightened as Modina quizzed her. The empress tried to calm down, tried to smile, but she could not. Instead, she stood up. The floor was cold, but she barely noticed. She paced, thinking.
It’s not possible for a child to see the future in a dream-is it? But that’s what the Patriarch said when he was quoting at the meeting. “They came on brilliant white horses, wearing shining gold and shimmering blue.” Still, that ancient account might not apply to these elves.
“Can you remember where you were when you saw them enter the gate?”
Mercy thought a moment. “We were on the wall out front of the courtyard, where Allie and I play with Mr. Rings.”
“Was it day or night?”
“Morning.”
“Could you see the sun?”
She shook her head and Modina sighed. If only she-
“It was cloudy,” Mercy told her.
“Could you tell which side the sea was on while looking at the gate?”
“Ah-this side, I think,” she said, taking her right hand out of the covers and shaking it for her.
“Are you sure?”
The girl nodded.
“You were looking at the southern gate,” Modina said.
“You two get back to sleep,” she told the girls, and left them staring as she rushed out of the bedroom, pulling on a robe. The guard outside spun around, startled.
“Wake up the chancellor and tell him I want to see that scout Entwistle right now. I will meet them in the chancellor’s office. Go.”
She closed the door and ran down the steps to the fourth floor without bothering to get dressed.
“You there!” She caught a guard yawning. He snapped to attention. “Get a light on in the chancellor’s office.”
By the time Nimbus and the scout arrived, she had the map of the kingdom of Warric off the shelf and spread out over the desk.
“What’s going on?” the chancellor asked.
“You are from the south, aren’t you, Nimbus?”
“I am from Vernes, Your Eminence.”
“That’s down here at the mouth of the Bernum?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know of any place south of Colnora to cross the Bernum River?”
“No, Your Eminence.”
She looked back at the map for a moment and the two men waited patiently. “So the elves can’t get at us from the west unless they have seaworthy ships, and they can’t approach us from the north because of the mountains?”
She looked up, this time at the scout.
“Yes, Your Eminence, we started an avalanche on the Glouston road and it won’t be clear until late spring. The bridges in Colnora were destroyed as well.”
“And they can’t come at us from the east or the south because of the Bernum. What about the Rilan Valley? Can’t they get through there?”
“No, the snow is too deep in the fields. An elf might be able to walk over it with proper shoes, but he won’t be able to bring horses or wagons. And even if they did, they would still have to cross the Farendel Durat, and those passes are closed.”
She looked again at the map, studying the little lines on it.
“If the elven army was to attack us from our southern gate, how best would they get here?”
“They can’t,” the scout said. “The only bridges across the Bernum River gorge were in Colnora and they have been destroyed.”
“What if they went around Colnora? What if they crossed the Bernum south of there?”
“The river south of Colnora is wide and deep. There’s no ford or bridge except those in Colnora, which aren’t there anymore.”
Modina drummed her fingers on the desk, staring at the map.
“What is it, Your Eminence?” Nimbus asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But we’re missing something. It’s not the cold slowing down their advance. Maybe they want us to think it is, but I’m certain they’re circling around us. I think they will attack from the southeast.”
“But that’s not possible,” the scout said.
“These are elves. Do we really know what is possible for them? If they were able to get across, what would that do?”
“That would depend on where they crossed. It could wind up dividing us from Breckton’s forces in the east, or they could walk in unopposed from the south.”
“Your Eminence, I know every inch of the Bernum. I used to float goods down it from Colnora to Vernes with my brother as boys. We worked it year-round. There is no place to cross. It is as wide and deep as a lake and has a deadly current. Even in summer, without a boat, a man can’t get across. In winter it would be suicide.”
The decision was too important to base on the nightmare of a child even though her heart told her she was right. Her eyes fell on the little copper pin in the shape of a torch on Tope Entwistle’s chest. “Tell me,” she said. “What is that you are wearing on your breast?”
He glanced down and smiled self-consciously. “Sir Breckton awarded that to me for successfully lighting the fire signaling the elves’ move across the Galewyr.”
“So you actually saw the elven army?”
“Yes, Your Eminence.”
“Tell me, then, what color are the uniforms of the elves?”
He looked surprised at the question and then replied, “Blue and gold.”
“Thank you, you can leave. Go back to sleep. Get some rest.”
The scout nodded, bowed, and left the office.
“What are you thinking, Your Eminence?” the chancellor asked.
“I want word sent to Colnora to recall Breckton and his troops,” she said. “We aren’t going to survive, Nimbus. Even after everything we’ve done. They are going to break through our defenses, throw down our walls, and burst into this palace.”
Nimbus said nothing. He remained straight and calm.
“You knew that already, didn’t you?”
“I harbor few illusions, Your Eminence.”
“I won’t let my family be slaughtered-not again.”
“There is still hope,” he told her. “You have seen to that. All we can do is wait.”
“And pray.”
“If you feel that will help.”
“You don’t believe in the gods, Nimbus?”
He smiled wryly. “Oh, I most certainly believe in them, Your Eminence. I just don’t think they believe in me.”
CHAPTER 15
The Harbinger limped to shore without much dignity. Wyatt managed to create a small sail from what remained, and hoisted it to a pole he lashed to the stump of the old mast. They no longer flew across the waves; they barely drifted, but it was enough to make the far shore. Farther down the shore Royce spotted what looked to be a dock, which they avoided, and instead they anchored in at a sheltered cove. Here the beach was only a small spit of land surrounded by large blocks of broken stone, each one half the height of a man. They lay tumbled and scattered like the toys of some giant toddler after a tantrum. The stones glistened from the sea spray, and those closest to the water wore glowing beards of what looked like long stringy moss.